I have the ARK with Berks. Thiss hiss/whistle is normal, the metal rattling is NOT. Sounds like a clearance issue with the install.

Also, I had a rattling right after my install too. It turned out that plug for the extra O2 bung on the Berk HFC was not torqued down properly from the factory and was rattling loose. Tightened it up and the metallic rattling was gone. Don't know if yours even has that O2 bung, but it's worth a look.

Did you check if the heat shield is contacting the rear passenger side muffler? 10 bucks says that is the culprit, I just solved that same issue with my FI exhaust.

How do I rectify this? Bend the shield back?

I specifically asked them to use lock-tite on that bung and torque it down. I'll check again tomorrow.

I'm getting that same rattling too man. I did the install myself. I got a little hiss, thought it was a leak. I went back on a lift. Let it cool down after installing my suspension then started the car, lifted it and check all the couplings. No leaks. Thats just how it sounds. I will look at my rattling issue today.

Yep, just bend it away from the exhaust. It bends very easily and can be bent back to where it was if you go back to stock, mine was touching the exhaust can but now has an inch or two of clearance.

So I'm assuming your rattlig is gone then?

I'm still going to ask them to re-install everything and use some sealant because there may be a small leak somewhere. This will also allow them to properly re-install the X pipe by jacking it up before tightening all the bolts. That, plus the heat shield adjustment should hopefully fix the issue.

EDIT: everything is fixed. It was rattling on the cross member. The whistle and hiss is still there a little but that's from the tp and ark x pipe. The car is pretty loud. I'm hoping it calms down once it settles. Great performance and sound at WOT.

nice to hear your problem is solved, mine did the same thing, thats why i suggested the reinstall. it didnt start right after install tho, it did after couple of days after. as for loudness it will quite down, when i installed the exhaust it was almost unbearable to do a hard acceleration to 5k rpm (i was still breaking in the engine) due to loudness but now it fine.
you should post some pics of you car too, i wanna see how much lower you passanger muffler hangs compared to the driver side.

I'll post up some crappy iPhone shots later on if I can. Its pouring rain out today. And yea it's loud especially with the resonated test pipe but I think itll calm down once it gets broken in.

The Ark exhaust will quiet up some once everything burns in. Give it a few days.

Great to hear, I'm glad you figured it all out! I actually did not notice any real rattling, I only found that it was touching the exhaust when I was polishing my exhaust cans and my hand hit it. It subsequently gave me a decent cut, damn sharp edges!

Yea the mechanic said if it were touching the heat shield it would have been a more "tinny" sound but this was loud and solid as it was vibrating against the cross member. All is well so far, just hoping it quiets down some.

BLM Give us a call if you have any other questions. It sucks to have this happen over the weekend when the office was closed. We could have responded sooner if it were during the week.

909.391.1275

Alex

The fitment issue was taken care of but maybe u guys could try to fabricate a test pipe or hfc that eliminates the hissing from the exhaust.

So it was rubbling. Glad you got it taken care of :tup:

Yep. Rubbin like a mofo. Apparently ARK is in the process of fabricating their own hfc specifically to be paired with the CBE to eliminate the hiss/whistle noise.

I do like the exhaust a lot. Well made, nice sound at WOT and pretty quite while cruising (though it's a bit deep and loud while cruising around 2000 rpm). Having a hfc that eliminates the hiss would make it perfect IMO.

Do you have an X pipe or Y? Allegedly the X tends to hiss quite a bit under load.

Yea it's an X. When it was on the lift that's where the hiss was audible from. There weren't really too many other exhausts I liked. The meisterschaft is nice but it's a bit too much for me. I guess I'll just have to hold out and hope ARK develops an HFC that eliminates the hiss. If not I'll either deal with it or put the cats back in.

When I had my Injen exhaust, it had a resonated X pipe and had literally not one hint of rasp or hiss. My FI exhaust on the other hand is quite the opposite, but not much you can do there!

From all the videos I've watched it seems that the exhausts that are "true dual" (such as ARK and FI) sound different from those that are constructed off of the OEM Y pipe platform. The latter tend to be a bit more raspy and metallic whereas the true duals are deeper. I can say that my setup sounds totally different from stock in terms of the overall sound. The OEM style y pipe designs tend to sound like a louder version of stock.

However, the rub here seems to be that the true dual systems are more susceptible to the hissing on decel (when a test pipe or HFC is added) than the OEM style systems.

Hoping ARK comes through with their HFC soon to fix this issue. The system is great otherwise.

It's the way this engine is designed that makes the hissing noises. It's there stock but can't really be heard because of the restrictiveness of the exhaust. You can lessen/ pretty much eliminate the hissing with better exhaust designs. The x pipe design is going to make the hissing louder but there is a way around it. Again it's all in the design of the exhaust. For example. The fi exhaust comes out of the cats and goes straight into an x pipe. The fi x pipe crossover is very small and creates Alot of hissing through it. I switched over to the invidia exhaust and noticed that the hole in the x pipe is larger to allow more air to crossover and flow with less turbulence. Also there are resonators right before the x pipe on the invidia exhaust to quiet to hissing down. There is virtually no hissing from the invidia exhaust. The fi exhaust hissing was almost unbearable. If companies start to use invidias design or even better use resonated x pipes I believe everyone will be much happier as there will be little to no hiss. I tried telling Tony this at fi only to be told that the different x pipe design would make no difference and that it was a characteristic of this engine and that nothing could be done to change it yet when I switched it made all the difference in the world.

Yea, ARK told me the same about the HFC. If they can come up with one that fixes the hiss, I'm putting the Berk's up for sale.

same here. the eta for the prototype is apparently 8 weeks so I would hope some time during the summer. Either way, the car is making great power. And it sounds great at WOT.

I just listened to the sound clip and damn that sucks!
How don't you like that rasp when your car sounds amazing @ WOT.
That is sexy.

I'm telling you check my thread I have videos and the source of the hissing noise it the X-Pipe.




Dan

Oh yea, we know. It's just that ARK is supposedly working on an HFC design (resonated?) that should solve this issue. Either that or maybe they can offer a true dual replacement center section to replace the x-pipe.

I wonder how much the hiss will be decreased with the FI RESONATED HFC? It's kinda price though. I wonder if it would be better to just save the money and go back to the stock cats? I think i'd sacrifice a lot of power though.

Just out of curiosity, do you think an H pipe would help in all of this? I haven't seen many of them on the forums but I would think that it would help while also improving performance over the stock cats.

FWIW I don't have hiss with my HKS HI POWER TI. However, I have stock cats and stillen G3 intake.

The ARK also has no hiss with stock cats either. I'm trying to decide whether it's worth it to switch from my RTP to a resonated hfc or if I should just go back to stock cats. They're so restrictive though. The hfc itself will lessen the hiss but I don't know if adding a resonator to the pipe will eliminate it. Im doubting it. The HFC guys have hiss and I have it with an RTP.

the hiss supposedly comes from too much exhaust flow, so anything that is less restrictive than stock cats will hiss, i think :confused:

I THINK a Berk HFC/CBE combo doesn't hiss. Idk really. I'll either deal with it or re-install the oem cats. Not gonna pay another $500 plus install for a resonated cat pipe unless I'm sure it will eliminate the hiss. I'll just wait for ARK to release their pipe.

hm i think the berk cbe is designed differently tho, their X section in made by welding 2 pipes bend in a U shape, which would give more volume in the part where the pipes meet for the flow to cross over.

Same here, was looking at the ERZ/CNT HFC or RTP but im worried about the hissing, so i'll wait to see what ARK comes up with.

edit: you can see a pic of the berk cbe in this thread

Yes they were working on that months ago when I had their exhaust. I wouldn't hold my breath.



Dan

I've been trying to decide if I should just go with the Fast Intention resonated cat pipe ($600 plus install) or simply re-install the stock cats. There's no guarantee the FI pipe will eliminate the rasp. I feel the longer I wait I'll just end up getting used to the sound. Plus, starting in July I will be garaging the car for a year. So at some point in the next 16 months I'm sure ARK will come up with a fix for the rasp.

How is the rasp/whistle/hiss with your current set-up?

That is for sure. You should change that Mad to Happy..

Not bad at all alot less amplified is a good way of putting it Berk Test Pipes and HKS exhaust is a great combo.... But I will find out at the end of April how HKS sounds with FI LTH's :)



DAN

I fixed my issue also, it was the xpipe hitting the cross member. I disconnected the rear exhausts and the section that connects to the xpipe. re-aligned it and used high temp silicone to seal and no more rattling issue.


But I wanted to see pictures of others with this exhaust because it seems that the passenger side hangs lower than the right no matter how straight the connections were made and how far pushed in I put the hangers on the exhaust.

Mine use to hang visibly lower on the right but since I re-aligned everything to the best that it could be its not as bad but you can tell if you looked really hard:shakes head:

Sometimes mine looks crooked sometimes it doesn't. The top pic is the most recent and that appears to be straight. I think. lol

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...d/IMAG0353.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...d/IMG_3152.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...d/IMG_3153.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...d/DSC_0113.jpg

Thanks for the pics.. The first two looks fine but the last pic looks a little off on the right side like mine... I'll post mine up when I get to a regular computer + rep for u